


The World Inferno

by Urbenmyth



Series: Tales Beyond The Archives [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cruelty, Fire, God I hope nothing I put here was mortally offensive, being a general bastard, philisophical rants on the nature of pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26990326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urbenmyth/pseuds/Urbenmyth
Summary: Many wonder whether we live in a world of hope, or of violence, or of oppression, or of apathy.They're all wrong.We live in a world of Desolation.
Series: Tales Beyond The Archives [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965088
Kudos: 13





	The World Inferno

Many forget the Desolation. Next to the subtle Web or the watchful Eye, or the laughing Spiral? Simple _burning_ seems tame. Overlookable. Boring, even. Who cares about another torture porn montage of atrocities when you can see the grotesque beauty of the Flesh or the dancing masks of the Stranger? Who's interested in such a basic, primal fear?

_Deep in the outback of Australia, there is a hole, searing hot even for the Red Center. If you cast a photo of your enemy in, within a week they will lose the thing they love most in the world. And so will you. It is a heavy cost, and a hard journey. But more make it then you might hope._

But there is a truth in the primal. A truth we often forget in our "civilized" world. And which entity is more primal? We talk of the Dark and the Hunt and the End as the oldest, but before there were eyes to be blinded or teeth to feast or minds to grasp mortality, there was the instinctive need to avoid pain. As soon as we were life, we feared Desolation.

 _In a_ _small_ _apartment in_ _New York_ _,_ _a young woman reads the Flamesinger’s_ _Gospel_ _. Beneath medical bills,_ _exorbitant_ _rent and_ _looming_ _debt, she doesn’t know how much longer she can go on. As the_ _F_ _lamesinger, she can burn this city down._ _She can make them suffer._ _She will make her choice soon._

We ignore the simplicity of fear. We look at cackling wax men and we laugh. They’re caricatures, silly, even pitiable. In a world of dark gods, a man who simply burns you seems absurd. Threatening, maybe, but it doesn't stick in your mind. It doesn't linger. We think, in our sophisticated cities, we have no need to fear the fire anymore.

_On the streets of Cape Town, the homeless talk of a creature made of white-hot metal that lives beneath the street. When one of them seems to be getting their life together, it comes to cast them back down. That’s what happened to Upendo, you see. He had found a job. So it took his eyes._

But how much would you do simply to avoid being burnt? To avoid pain? The Desolation is baked into you in a way no other Entity is, seared into your bones. It is _immortal_ in a way no other entity is. What is fear, at its basest level, but the fear of pain and loss? What is the Buried but the pain of being crushed, or the Flesh but the pain of being devoured, or the Lonely but the pain of rejection? What are all entities, but shadows of the Lightless Flame?

_In historical Japan, with easily repairable wood and paper houses, fire devastated entire cities. Time and architecture has moved on, and the scourge of arson is no longer what it once was. But to this day, burning shadows sometimes rise in the streets of Tokyo, and metal skyscrapers burn like w_ _ashi and ceder wood._

It is easy to think the Desolation’s minions stupid _._ But it is not lazy to wait when one doesn’t need to act. It's not lazy to play around when you're already won. This world _belongs_ to pain. Not to the Eye, not the Web, not even the End. They squabble and plot, but this is beyond them. This is primal. This is bone deep. This is what your world is.

 _In Salvador, there is a cup. If you drink from it, it will burn away any happiness from you. You will never feel joy again. It looks like_ _a simple_ _mug-_ _the flame pattern is subtle enough you might never notice it,_ _and it always appears where it wouldn’t raise alarm_ _. It looks normal. You can drink from it without_ _realizing_ _. Many have._

_In the rural areas of Texas, there is a dark car, driven by figures in featureless wax masks. Every 6 months, they choose a random family. They break into their house, and they torture all but the youngest to death. The youngest, they leave to remember, and to break, and to one day make their own wax mask._

_In Hilo, there is a man who hears_ _Mauna Loa talk to him. It tells him it will erupt soon, and his world will end in pyroclastic flows. He must torture sacrifices to death, those who inspire hope and joy, to stop it. He weeps as he does it. But he hears the whispers of lava and death, and he does what he must._

Let the others indulge in their schemes and rituals and plot and plans. They mean nothing. The winner is already manifest.

There will never be a world without pain.

And in the end, only the Desolation will live forever.


End file.
